Tag Archives: lake tahoe

It has been so long since I have blogged on here that it’s almost like starting over. I am still knitting, albeit slowly. Darby does not have any new sweaters, she uses only 1 that I’ve made and I have lost many of the rest.

Currently on the needles I have a sweater inspired by Wendy Bernard‘s Favorite Cardigan. Rather than buying her book I thought I could do the sweater without using a pattern. Naturally, I was completely wrong. Upon realizing that I needed help in figuring out how to make a sweater, again, I went though the patterns that I do have and settled upon the Wicked pattern by Rachel Bishop. I started with a smaller size than I normally would because the Plymouth 1824 wool I am using is a teensy bit thicker. Also, because I have lost some weight and have gone down a size or two. I cast on the number of stitches required and did the ribbing for the neck , turning and going back rather than connecting and knitting around. For the cables, I picked up a stitch dictionary and picked something that looked nice. I also elected to not add the cables on the arms because, well, I didn’t want the arms to be tight and look like sausages.

Here it is thus far. I am planning on doing some waist shaping at some point, maybe in the next inch or so. I’m petite, so the torso on most patterns needs to be shortened.

I have also been working on a scarf for a friend. We were out shopping and she was looking at scarves and I said something along the lines of “I could make one of those.” Thanks to my big mouth, I am making her a scarf, but really, it’s because I love her and she is a great friend. I have so so so much yarn I didn’t want to go out and purchase more so I went through the various bits of my stash squirreled away in various cubbies of my itty bitty apartment and found some nice smooshy yarn left over from a baby sweater. I figured a ball and a half would be nice. I started with a cabled design from my head but quickly realized the scarf would be the size of a handkerchief, so it was back to ravelry to find something quick, easy, and lacy to make a scarf as long as possible with less than 200 yards of yarn.

I chose the Diagonal Handspun Lace Scarf because it was a simple repeating pattern and could really stretch the use of the yarn. I’ve been working on it daily since Saturday and am pleased at how quickly it progresses. I worked on it at Bible Study, for which I should be ashamed but it helps me loosen up and participate more.

The yarn, Samoa, it delightfully smooshy and doesn’t seem to pill either. If this scarf turns out too short, which I suspect it might, it will be back to the stash to find something else. Sadly, the yarn shop in my town has closed so I would have to go to one of the chain stores to find yarn unless I want to go out of town to find nice yarn.

One of my coworkers brought me a bag of yarn and needles from a deceased relative, the yarn is all different acrylics, which is great for the kids, but better yet, were all the needles, a great big handful of 8’s, 9’s and 10’s. There are enough there to teach at least 10 kids to knit.

I went to Lake Tahoe with my newly wed friend Jen over the fall break. I have been to Tahoe a couple times since moving to Northern California but had never seen a bear there. Finally, on this trip I got to see a mother bear and her cub feasting on spawning salmon.

We also baited a trap to catch crawdads, which are amazing little things. I imagine them to be miniature little lobsters.

Darby came with, she stayed in her little pupsack when we were hiking and roamed the cabin and next to the lake when she could.

I spent WWKIP day in Lake Tahoe and found it difficult to find anyone knitting in public. After scouring the interwebs I finally gave up and went to a yarn shop I know about in South Lake Tahoe. I commenced to not knit there, being frustrated with my silk shawl, and instead worked on the newest baby blanket of doom.

A teeny section of said Baby Blanket of Doom.

I talked to a very nice woman who started a crocheted hexagon blanket based on the blanket from Attic24 (link on the side on my blog). I knew exactly the blanket, which is great because the lady working there didn’t know. She also didn’t know about WWKIP day. So the nice lady visiting Tahoe and I talked while her yarn was being wound into cakes. It was really nice.

There was this awesome mermaid in the window. Love it!!

Awesome mermaid. Must make...

There was lots of hiking too, but thats another post. But here is a sneak peek…

While up in Tahoe, before electing to walk down stairs wearing socks and break my tailbone, I started making a February Lady Beret (free pattern link to sock pixie) with some yarn I had originally purchased to make the awesome baby mohawk hat a couple posts back. Anyway, the original February beret was done in something like a double knit yarn (like smaller than worsted weight) and my yarn was thicker than regular worsted yarn, so I did some magic math in my head and cast on.

Now, if that had worked I would have had a finished beret by my second day in Tahoe. *snort* I mean really, does measuring and using my mad algebraic skills really every work the first time? Maybe, but this time it was not to be. I finished the ribbed part of the hat, which looked great, and using basic algebra again, did increases around the edge to being the number up to create enough stitches to repeat the gull lace pattern 9 times. knit knit knit It was looking good if not a little big, but then again, you have to make it big so your beret is floppy, right? Started decreasing even though the amount of yarn left seemed a little scant. I had maybe 8 decrease rows left when the yarn ran out.

*Sigh

Bill didn’t want me to frog the hat after seeing all that work go into it. He even suggested we find more yarn (we will see how long that lasts). I however, really really wanted to frog that bugger and knit it up smaller. So I did.

Here my eyes look like a gold brown color, which they aren't usually. In pics with the green sweater my eyes have a green outer ring. Funny.

I am not sure about the color, even if gold is supposed to be a good color on me. I am, after all, an Autumn. 😉

Oh yeah, I did actually check out Lake Tahoe. Bill and I investigated the North Shore. it was chilly out.

Do you recognize the hat on top of that cute head?

I am really trying to sneek up on those geese. I did get within a few feet but they knew I was without bread to offer them.

We went to South Lake Tahoe for my birthday weekend. Mom and I had never been there before.

View of Lake Tahoe

We walked around a bit, checked out some shops and then went up the gondola. The first stop is a viewing deck, but all the trails were blocked off. On the viewing deck a couple was taking wedding pictures. The poor bride was freezing, I’m sure, as the wind was blowing cold and they were in the shade.

The view at the top of the gondola was not what i expected, dry, dusty, and with trails that Elton wasn’t interested in going on. So we turned around, took the 12 minute ride back down 3000 feet to a less oxygen depleted elevation of about 6000 feet above sea level to get some food.

Having looked at all the alpaca rugs, which were really cool, I had a hankering for alpaca yarn. mom and I went in search for the LYS. I was wholly disappointed with “The Wool Tree” the yarn shop in Tahoe, it was small, cramped, and the women didn’t seem overly friendly. I had wanted to buy some alpaca but all they had was what I could get in any LYS. On the way back to get Elton we stopped at a couple galleries and checked out some really cool stuff, the best being the Dr. Suess gallery, which had some great art, not just by Dr. Suess.

I think my favorite pictures would be these…

Branches above the lake.

plague warning, just what you want to see at the top of a mountain before you go hiking.